BROWNSVILLE, Texas—Mexican drug smugglers were targeted in a sting operation near the Texas border. Federal agents arrested three men and raided a home allegedly used as a drug distribution “office” by a group smuggling drugs across the border from Mexico.
Agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrested Eric Edward Hernandez, Oscar Ivan Salgado, and Edgar Medina Reyes in connection with an ongoing investigation into the distribution of marijuana from Mexico, court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed.
While Hernandez is a U.S. citizen, Salgado and Medina are listed in jail records as Mexican citizens. Information about their immigration status was not readily available.
The three men went before a U.S. magistrate judge in Brownsville on Thursday. They were formally charged them with conspiracy to distribute marijuana.
While court records don’t specifically mention Mexican drug cartels, they identify the men as working for a “DTO” (drug trafficking organization) bringing drugs from Mexico into Brownsville.
The Mexican city of Matamoros, just south of Brownsville, is controlled by the Gulf Cartel. The cartel controls all drug trafficking and human smuggling in the area.
Just one day before, HSI agents had carried out a sting operation and raided a home in a middle class neighborhood in the western side of Brownsville. The men used the house as their base of operations.
The information on the house came from another man who had been previously arrested before. He began to cooperate with authorities. The man, identified in court records as CD (cooperating defendant), set up a meeting between Salgado, himself, and an HSI agent posing as a buyer.
During the meeting at an outlet mall in Mercedes, Salgado showed the agent and CD a sample of the drugs. He said he had about 150 pounds in Brownsville ready for distribution. The three men agreed on a price of $230 per pound and Salgado went to Brownsville to pick up the drugs in order to make the exchange.
HSI agents followed Salgado to the house in Brownsville. The agents observed that he traveled back to the delivery location with another vehicle driven by Medina as an escort. The agents had sheriff’s deputies pull the men over and seized the drugs.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.